Tamika Moore/Birmingham NewsTo say the hiring of Gene Chizik lacked the "wow" factor Auburn fans were hoping for is an understatement. Here, he departs the airport Sunday night.

The timing is questionable at best.

Not just Jay Jacobs' announcement that his replacement for former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is Iowa State head coach Gene Chizik, he of the 5-19 career record, although there are plenty who question the timing of that.

No, what Jacobs may discover to be really bad timing is the mailing of renewal forms for Auburn's "Tigers Unlimited Football Ticket Priority."

The renewals were mailed last week, and donors started getting their renewal forms Friday and Saturday, just about the same time word started spreading that Jacobs was hiring Chizik.

If phone conversations with prominent Auburn boosters and e-mails from people claiming to be Auburn season-ticket holders is any indication, the early returns to the "Tigers Unlimited" fund may be limited, at best.

Such seems to be the depths of unhappiness over the hiring of Chizik.

Particularly when the early word out of Iowa State is that the Cyclones may be going after Buffalo head coach Turner Gill as Chizik's replacement. Whoever Iowa State does get, Auburn fans will watch with great interest, knowing it's a coach the Tigers could have gotten first.

To say the hiring of Chizik lacked the "wow" factor Auburn fans were hoping for is an understatement.

No matter how well Chizik does at today's introductory press conference - and the betting here is that Chizik handles himself extremely well - Auburn has already "lost the press conference," as the saying goes.

Chizik's first task is going to be to sell himself to the Auburn faithful who have lost faith in the leadership of Jacobs and university President Jay Gogue.

There are Auburn fans who want him to answer for leaving his position as defensive coordinator at Auburn for the same position at Texas. Some seem to think of Chizik's decision as a slap in the face of Auburn, that Chizik felt Texas was a better place from which to become a head coach than Auburn.

Never mind that it worked for Chizik, that he did get a head coaching job after only two years on the job with the Longhorns. Angry Auburn fans want to know how he is now going to lure a top-notch staff to Auburn. By promising them he'll prepare them for future jobs on Mack Brown's staff?

Chizik, through no fault of his own, will be starting out under such doubts from so much of his own school's fan base that trying to win the commitment of recruits away from the likes of Alabama and Florida and Georgia may be easy by comparison.

His best chance to make up some of that ground in a hurry is by hiring a staff that brings a "wow" factor that Chizik's hiring lacked. Whether that means raiding top schools to get top coaches who have national reputations, or find a way to bring home some top assistants with Auburn connections, such as Rodney Garner and Stacey Searels, the makeup of Chizik's staff could smooth some very ruffled feathers.

The other is, of course, with some early recruiting victories. Nothing wins over hardcore fans like winning a few high-profile recruiting battles against the top teams in the country.

Meanwhile, those "Tigers Unlimited" envelopes will lie on desks all over the state, as fans who have poured so much of their hard-earned money into the Auburn football program overcome their objection to Jacobs' direction.

Eventually, of course, Auburn fans will come around. They always do. They will mail in their donations to keep their seats in Jordan-Hare Stadium, because the same people who supported Shug Jordan supported Doug Barfield. The same people who backed Pat Dye fell in behind Terry Bowden.

The same people who supported Tommy Tuberville will find themselves drawn toward supporting Chizik, because they are Auburn fans first, and that's what fans do.